Quite simply, the snack equivalent of crack. THIS is what I have wanted donuts to be, since back in the day when good donuts meant a cardboard box of chocolate-glazed munchkins. The cinnamon sugar donut from Balthazar Bakery ($1.25) is small, less than palm-sized. When biting into it you break throught an apply-crisp, brown-sugary outer layer, into a doughy, delicately chewy middle. This donut ranks beyond Krispey Creme and Doughnut Plant due to the fritter-like crunch of that outer layer. It’s no exaggeration to say that I live in New York City to eat stuff like this.
Balthazar Bakery, 80 Spring St.
Yesterday afternoon I was wondering down Mulberry Street, where I encountered a man handing out candy stamped with cartoon mushrooms. I gathered this was connected to the giant pile of pulsh, adorably demonic Japanese ‘shrooms I spied through a nearby storefront, so I decided to investigate. I made my way past the sculpted tumble of stuffed mushrooms, beyond a post-nuclear soft-drink refrigerator stocked with mushroom-printed aluminum cans, and down a flight of stairs to a plate of biscuit-colored mini-mushrooms labelled “EAT ME.” I plopped one into my mouth, thinking that free snacks ought to be incorporated into conceptual art more often. As the super-sweet candy dissolved, it released a sugary cloud of powder that somehow lodged in my windpipe. I couldn’t breathe.
Red-faced and panicky, I made a dash for the exit and worst-case-scenarioed-it down the street onto a 6 train just as the doors whirred shut. I realized I had unconsciously steered myself toward home. Better to die unobserved in my studio apartment if I could manage it, I guess.
I slumped across from the loudest couple of tourists in Manhattan. Doughy and middle-aged, but giddy and dressed in spangly denim, their cocktail-fueled screeching filled the car. I stared at the toe cleavage on one of them, who’d crammed her plump digits into a tight high heel, in a zen-like effort to quell the unsatisfied coughing fit. One of them, a frosted blonde whose face furrowed like a pug’s, handed me a camera. “Can you take our picture?”
I was still convulsing, and it was hard to hold the camera still. “When were the subways built?” Toe Pudge asked as if this was information every New Yorker had at hand. “Around 1900,” I choked. “1900, that’s impossible,” Pug-Face said. “They didn’t have subways back than. How would they run?” I stared at them, feeling myself turn purple. “Steam!” said their friend. They all found this uproriously funny, laughing with their faces pointed at me. “Steam!” Toe-Pudge squealed, kicking her porcine feet. They were still cackling as I fled the car at Astor Place, hacking out the last of the mushroom-candy dust.
Today while wandering through Soho to spy upon cute geeks buying iPhones I happened upon my favorite New York street performer/salesperson, Peeler Man. If you suspect that you might ever need a vegetable peeler, you should wait til you encounter him.
I call it street theater, because make no mistake, Peeler Man, whose name is actually Joe Ades, is a notch or two beyond QVC hosts when it comes to impassioned conviction about the amazing versatility of the Star vegetable peeler. An older, well-dressed gentleman with white hair, Ades can usually be seen on some busy sidewalk, crouched over plastic bins holding potatoes and carrots, bellowing in a British accent, a wad of bills clenched between latex-gloved, orange-stained fingertips. One’s first impression is that perhaps the guy has lost his mind, but then you stop and watch him do his thing and eventually, appreciate the entertainment value.
“NOW! I’LL SHOW YOU HOW IT WORKS! FIRST! YOU PEEL THE CARROT!” he shouts to a tentative-but-intrigued flock of tourists and shoppers standing only a few feet away. Peels pile up like magic beneath his fingers. “THEN! YOU SLICE THE CARROT!” he folds the paper-thin slices between his fingers, cuts some more, and easy as that, even, identical carrot shavings shoot from the peeler. He sells the Star peelers for $5 a pop, and says they’re made in Switzerland, and only available exclusively from him on the sidewalks of New York.
Apparently he was recently featured in Vanity Fair, and lives comfortably with his wife on the Upper West Side.
Joe Ades and the Star Vegetable Peeler, Soho, Union Square, Sixth Avenue near Rockefeller Center, and other random New York sidewalks
I don’t realize what copious amounts of dairy I consume until I’m out with someone who can’t eat it without getting an upset stomach. I feel a reciprocal pang in my tummy as they scour a menu at some place I’ve raved about, looking for any item not slathered in cream sauce or cemented by gobs of cheese. It’s true, I am woefully under-prepared for adult-onset lactose intolerance.
So I was intrigued when I heard about the pizza at Grandaisy Bakery, served up at room temperature in cheeseless squares. The pomodoro especially interested me, as it consists only of sauce and crust; and as I peered at it under glass it looked kinda unfinished and possibly not good. But one taste changed my mind. The crust is crisp and light, and the sauce thick and slightly sweet. It highlighted the two elemental pizza ingredients in a refreshing way, and at $2.75 makes a great snack.
My other favorites include roasted cauliflower with gruyere and a sprinkling of parsley, as well as potato-and-onion seasoned with rosemary; both slightly heavier, more filling options. But the pomodoro really made me think twice about the necessity of cheese on pizza.
Grandaisy Bakery, formerly Sullivan Street Bakery, 73 Sullivan Street
Open daily 7am-7pm